Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Gimme Shelter (Documentary Film)

By PaulyLos Angeles, CA

The Rolling Stones were in LA playing a special tour to commemorate 50 years as the world's greatest live rock and roll band. I skipped it. If it were 1973, then I'd definitely drop everything to go see them. But in 2013? I'll pass.

Gimme Shelter is a documentary about the Stones attempt to put on a free concert in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, that eventually got moved to Altamont Raceway on the other side of the Bay. Benjo called this documentary a snuff film because you see the Hells Angels murder a speed dealer during a performance of Under My Thumb. Although not mentioned in this film, supposedly the CIA launched Operation Chaos and flooded the festival with a bad batch of LSD, which is why everything and everyone went awry. Who knows what really happened, but one thing is certain, there was tons of bad acid floating around. Someone cooked it up and distributed it. But who?